Stepping outside of familiar territory, renowned director Mohsen Makhmalbaf journeys a compelling storyline through India, complete with his signature of blending fiction and reality by combining a fictional story. An Iranian couple's journey to find the mysterious perfect man to fulfill their existential or religious questions, but really, it's a self-search quest. By creating Scream for the ants, he has fulfilled a fifteen-year-old dream and the beauty of this drama is the sorrowful undertone that it presents.
He portrays India just like how other filmmakers in the past have done to mention Jean Renoir's The River (1951), plenty of vibrant colours and intriguing scenario that will catnip the festival audience. This didn't end up like existential experimental ethnographic doc/shorts by Ute Aurand's India (2005), Johan van der Keuken's The Eye Above the Well (1988). The negative will be the conversation/narration and not the pacing, it's constant and unabated which makes you feel so disconnected and rather self-absorbed. Their discussion covers such powerful things as the nature of humanity, how they see the world, faith itself and the film goes against the grain but forgets about results and is too caught up in its own deep thinking that it falls below satisfactory at times. The writing is not natural enough and always feels like a play. It has the power of sincerity but lacks the feel of reality. This has the potential of a reveal, but the play doesn't take advantage. This is an academic play, but it doesn't actually breathe. I found the ending lacking to say the least with the German giving a speech on his journey to Ganges. I mean, I get it, but it certainly wasn't profound in any way. You could really do this complete movie in a matter of six lines and finish it in under five minutes to the point that I was eagerly waiting for it to end. I'm sure there are many fans out there who will rave about the brilliance of this film, definitely worth a watch but not Makhmalbaf 's best. But I'd personally recommend Kei Kumai's Fukai kawa/ Deep River (1995).
